CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met with senior officials from the African National Congress on Thursday to decide how to form a government after the party ended its three-decade hold on power lost and had left a post. -election deadlock.
The party’s National Executive Committee met in Johannesburg to work to resolve a division within the party’s ranks over the way forward. The ANC lost its long-standing majority in last week’s elections but remained the largest party and now needs some form of agreement with others to govern Africa’s most industrialized country.
The ANC has indicated that it is leaning towards a national unity government that would bring together many of the political parties in a broad agreement, rather than a direct coalition with the main opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA).
“We want to involve everyone,” ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said before Thursday’s meeting, which was likely to last all day. Mbalula said a national unity government would be proposed to the NEC, but he expected there would be debate and disagreement.
The ANC is the party once led by Nelson Mandela and which liberated South Africa from the apartheid system of white minority rule by winning the country’s historic first all-race vote in 1994. The party had seen a gradual decline in its support over the past twenty years. while South Africa struggles with high levels of poverty, unemployment and inequality.
The National Executive Committee, which includes more than 80 ANC top officials, is expected to be the body that decides the direction it will take.
There is no guarantee that all other parties will accept the idea of a national unity government, even though South Africa’s political leaders are under some time pressure to decide the way forward as the newly elected parliament is set to vote on June 16 having to sit for the first time. , with one of the first priorities being to elect a president.
The South African president is seeking a second term in office, and the envisaged agreement will also determine whether Ramaphosa is re-elected. South African elections determine how many seats each party gets in parliament and lawmakers then choose the president. As the ANC won only 40% of the vote and lost its parliamentary majority for the first time, it needs others to join the ANC to re-elect Ramaphosa for his final term.
A coalition between the ANC and the centrist DA was touted as the most likely option to co-govern South Africa, as the two would have a clear majority after DA won the second largest share of the vote with 21%.
But this was met with resistance from the basic structures of the ANC and from some political allies, such as the South African Trade Union Congress.
DA could also oppose a broad deal involving many political parties, as it has insisted it will never work with two of them – former president Jacob Zuma’s new populist MK party and the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters. They won the third and fourth largest shares of the vote.
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